Abstract

Understanding the behaviour of flows at the nanoscale holds the key to unlocking a myriad of emerging technologies. However, accurate experimental observation is complex due to the small spatio-temporal scales of interest and, consequently, mathematical modelling and computational simulation become key tools with which to probe such flows.

At such scales, the classical Navier-Stokes paradigm no longer provides an accurate description of the flow physics; however, microscopic models such as molecular dynamics (MD) become computationally intractable for most flows of practical interest. In this talk talk I will consider the influence of thermal fluctuations, which we will see are key to understanding counter-intuitive phenomena in nanoscale interfacial flows. A `top down’ framework that incorporates thermal noise is provided by fluctuating hydrodynamics and we shall use this model to gain insight into interfacial nanoflows such as drop coalescence, jet breakup and thin film rupture, using MD as a benchmark.

See also here.